Skylar
Of English origin, meaning "scholar" or "student of books and learning".
Name Census estimates that about 102,403 living Americans carry the first name Skylar. It sits at #134 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 82.5% of registrations being female. The average person named Skylar today is around 16 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Skylar births was 2015 (5,652 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Skylar. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Skylar with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Skylar started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
- • Skylar is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 16 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
102K
~ 1 in 3,347 Americans
Peak year
2015
5,652 babies that year
Average age
16
years old
2024 SSA rank
#134
Tracked since 1959
Census
Skylar in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 77,382 people with the first name Skylar, which placed it at #682 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#682
National first-name rank
People counted
77K
77,382 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
25.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
64.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Skylar
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Skylar is White at 64.0%. The next largest groups are Black (18.5%) and Hispanic (7.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Skylar described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Skylar at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White64.0% · 49,502
- Black or African American18.5% · 14,345
- Hispanic or Latino7.5% · 5,836
- Two or more races6.8% · 5,292
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.1% · 1,639
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 768
Gender
Gender distribution for Skylar
Skylar leans heavily female at 82.5% of total registrations, but 18,158 boys have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Skylar as a male name
- Ranked #1,550 in 2024
- 113 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2000 (748 births)
Skylar as a female name
- Ranked #134 in 2024
- 2,186 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2015 (5,294 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Skylar leans strongly female. 62,028 people counted with this name were female (80.2%), compared with 15,359 male bearers (19.8%).
Popularity
Skylar: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Skylar from the 1950s through to the 2020s, spanning 8 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 43,160 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Skylar remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Skylar by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Skylar during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Skylars live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. Texas, California, Florida recorded the most babies named Skylar, while Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,973 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Skylar
The name Skylar is a gender-neutral English name that has gained popularity in recent decades. Its origins can be traced back to the Dutch word "schuyler," which means "scholar" or "student." The name was initially used as a surname in the 17th century by Dutch settlers in the New York area.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Skylar as a first name dates back to the late 19th century. In 1898, a woman named Skylar Hamilton was born in Ohio, United States. However, it wasn't until the mid-20th century that the name began to gain more widespread use as a given name.
Historically, the name Skylar has been associated with a few notable figures. One such individual was Skylar Delone, an American politician who served as the Treasurer of New Jersey from 1946 to 1949. Another notable bearer of the name was Skylar Royce, an American author known for her historical fiction novels set in the American West during the late 19th century.
In the realm of literature, the name Skylar appears in several works of fiction. For instance, Skylar Sterns is a character in the novel "The Smoke Hunter" by Jacquelyn Byers, published in 2001. Additionally, Skylar James is the protagonist in the young adult novel "Skylar's Outlaw" by Cynthia Rutledge, released in 2005.
Among the more famous individuals with the name Skylar throughout history are Skylar Grey, an American singer, songwriter, and record producer born in 1986. Skylar Diggins, an American professional basketball player born in 1990, is another well-known figure with this name. Skylar Astin, an American actor and singer born in 1987, is also a notable bearer of the name.
Other notable individuals with the name Skylar include Skylar Neese, an American teenager who gained national attention in 2012 after her tragic murder, and Skylar Richardson, an American woman who was convicted of abuse of a corpse in 2019 after giving birth to a stillborn child.
People
Skylar + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Skylar as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with S
Other first names starting with S with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Skylar: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Skylar?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 102,403 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Skylar going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 3,347 US residents.
Is Skylar a common name?
We classify Skylar as "Common". It ranks above 99.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 103,743 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Skylar most popular?
The single biggest year for Skylar was 2015, when 5,652 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Skylar is about 16 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Skylar in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 77,382 people with the name Skylar, or 25.62 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #682 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Skylar in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Skylar?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Skylar leans strongly female. 62,028 people counted with this name were female (80.2%), compared with 15,359 male bearers (19.8%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Skylar?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Skylar is White at 64.0%. The next largest groups are Black (18.5%) and Hispanic (7.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Skylar most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Skylar in the 2020 Census, accounting for 64.0% (49,502 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Skylar in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Skylar a female name?
Yes, 82.5% of people registered as Skylar in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Skylar still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Skylar in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Skylar can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Skylar as a first name?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.